Callahan receives Distinguished Professorship

Info

Leigh F. Callahan, PhD of the Thurston Arthritis Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been awarded the Mary Link Briggs Distinguished Professorship in Arthritis Research.

This professorship recognizes the generosity of Mary Link Briggs, a resident of Lexington, North Carolina in providing an estate gift to advance arthritis care and research.

Dr. Callahan has been committed to fostering arthritis research, educating students and learners of all types in arthritis research methodology, and working on policy change and development to improve the lives of those with arthritis and autoimmune diseases. This award recognizes her hard work in these arenas and the level of her scholarship.

Dr. Callahan is a Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Social Medicine in the School of Medicine and Adjunct Professor in Epidemiology. She has an international reputation for her work in the role of socioeconomic status, particularly educational attainment, in arthritis outcomes. She has built a long line of work in the use of patient reported outcomes long before this concept became popular. She is also deeply involved in work in health literacy and has played pivotal roles in the development of new materials to address these issues and to test their effectiveness in improving access to care. She nationally recognized as a leading expert on the effectiveness of multiple physical activity interventions for arthritis and has conducted studies of these self-management interventions throughout the state of North Carolina.